Chapter 68
“You have the brand, too, don’t you?”
Whether the ache in her heart came from reuniting with a childhood friend she thought dead, or from his anguished expression, or from the brand itself, she could not discern.
“You did things… you didn’t want to do?” she asked.
Ian bit his lip.
“All of it—treating you roughly, taking you—yes. Before, I couldn’t speak of it because the Stone of Protection couldn’t fully suppress the brand.”
Stone of Protection?
Hearing those words, she recalled something he had pressed against his heart upon the altar. Strangely, it had dissolved and vanished into his body before she could properly register its presence.
“Now I can say it. That I have loved you since twenty years ago, in that log cabin in the forest.” That he hadn’t wanted to leave her.
“Yet I—believing you dead—”
Ian covered his face with both hands.
“Sick of the mutual slaughter and humiliation between Beakin and Archion, I swore I would blow up the temple along with Archion’s rotten imperial family. That I would cast them from their happiest place into the abyss. With these hands.”
He scooped up the holy water filling the bath, but most slipped through his fingers, falling away.
“I created holy water and gave it to them. So they would stake everything on it, then live without it, and collapse.” He shook his head. “I dared think Beakin—Beakin that let you die—deserved the same fate.”
But he never imagined she was the princess.
“I… am the one who cast you into the abyss.”
Ian spoke with head bowed. Delonas looked at him, then shook her own head.
“……Even if you hadn’t wanted to, you would have had to make the holy water because of the brand.” The conclusion would have been the same. The only difference would be that this man, bearing the same brand as hers, would have suffered that heart-crushing agony every time he tried to refuse Lekia.
“That doesn’t erase my sin.”
“……That—”
She wanted to say it wasn’t so. But she had lost her nation, and above all, her family. On Beakin’s final day, they said only she among the imperial family survived the burning palace. Lekia had boasted that she was Beakin’s last remaining blood.
“Father… Brother…”
She closed her eyes. Even knowing this man was also a victim, she could not help but mourn those she had lost.
It was then.
“……The Emperor of Beakin and the Crown Prince—they live.” Ian spoke.
Delonas’s eyes flew wide.
“How…?” They had all surely perished that day.
“When I learned you were the princess…” Ian continued. By the time Delonas was brought before him as the fallen empire’s princess, much was already too late. But he had not wanted her to lose her family as well. And fortunately, the beloved Emperor and Crown Prince of Beakin had escaped the flames.
“They are gathering rebels to rescue you. Naturally, all of this remains unknown, and Lekia and the Archion imperial family are on edge about it. And—” He bit his lip, released a short sigh, and continued. “If they attempt to raise a proper rebellion and strike effectively, they likely have plans to use you as a hostage.”
“Then…” Delonas was at a loss before the sudden news.
“They are all safe. Lekia and the Archion court are pursuing them, but I have taken measures to ensure they can evade capture.”
At this, Delonas finally exhaled the breath she had been holding. They are alive. They live. She covered her face with both hands. She had thought herself alone in this cruel world. Yet she had family—and a friend, it seemed.
“Delonas.” Ian spoke. “I originally intended to bring down this empire and die. But then you said something.”
At his words, Delonas looked up at him, traces of tears still on her face. His warm brown eyes were fixed upon her.
“You said you wanted to live.”
He regarded her cautiously. Then asked:
“Is that still true?”
After everything—more trampled, more taken from her than before?
Their eyes met. After a brief silence, Delonas nodded slightly.
At this, Ian looked at her and said, “……Then, if you survive and leave this place, what kind of life would you want to live?”
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